Two-legged scavengers: a new gastronomic trend has emerged in the world

If you are against killing animals, but are not ready to give up meat and are not too squeamish, then a new food trend gaining popularity in the West may suit you.

Gourmets of the new formation do not kill animals and birds for food and do not encourage their killing by buying meat in the supermarket. They pick up dead game on highways and cook excellent meat dishes from it.

In the UK, you can become a guest at a wedding where you are treated to roadside carrion. In the USA, you can be invited to a picnic, where they will serve a badger baked on coals, which was run over by a truck. In Australia, neighbors will bring a piece of grilled pheasant, caught by someone else's cat and abandoned in the backyard. Every year there are more and more such unique people on the planet and, talking about their nutrition, they are very convincing.

Guests of the English taxidermist Jonathan McGowan often argue about the origin of the meat served to the table. One day, the meat in spaghetti bolognese, which is absolutely similar to venison, turned out to be two carcasses of owls and barn owls, picked up by the owner of the table on the highway. Nevertheless, unusual dishes do not scare off Jonathan's friends, but, on the contrary, create for him the fame of an excellent cook and a principled fellow.

Starting an independent life from his parents, Jonathan realized that a child's hobby could well feed him. At times when money was very tight, the guy just went out on a busy road and reaped the fruits of the carelessness of drivers or the carelessness of animals.

Once a week, McGowan went to the forest highway and provided himself with an impressive supply of meat in a couple of hours. Skins and feathers also did not disappear — Jonathan made stuffed animals out of them, which he put up for sale. More than 30 years have passed since then, but a man still likes dead hedgehogs and raccoons from the roadside more than steamed veal or pork.

Almost all the species of mammals, birds and reptiles that are only found in the UK have been on the taxidermist's table for three decades. Foxes, hedgehogs, badgers, ferrets, otters, deer, cats - the list of "game" will take several pages.

Despite the varied diet of taxidermist McGowan, he is far from Frank Buckland, the British naturalist of the XIX century. Frank's father was a famous geologist and paleontologist, but at the same time he was also known as a gourmet with incredibly extravagant tastes. It was he who instilled in his son a love for stewed hedgehogs, crocodile fillet and other strange dishes.

The dinners Buckland gave at his mansion were known all over London. Soup from an elephant's trunk, fried viper or boiled monkey brains could be served to the table. It seemed that the gourmet tried everything in the world and could talk about the taste of boa constrictor meat, fried scorpions, boiled jellyfish.

The eccentric glutton got food for his table in various ways. One day his neighbor's pet cheetah died, but Frank found out about it only three days after the burial of the predatory cat. This fact did not prevent him from contacting the owner of the dead animal for permission to exhume the cheetah. The carrion was dug up and the predator's tenderloin was served to the table of Buckland and his guests on the same day. By the way, the culinary entertainer did not like the dish — he recognized the meat as too tough.

Buckland's personal chef was perhaps the most unhappy cook in the British Isles. He constantly baked pies stuffed with rhinoceros meat, stewed moles and baked guinea pigs. Everything was complicated by Sir Frank's magnificent appetite and his hospitality, because of which supplies had to be replenished constantly.

Giant sturgeons, bear carcasses, whale brains, cages with meerkats and many other equally strange things were delivered to the gourmet's house. Buckland collaborated with the London Zoo, which sometimes shared animal carcasses with the naturalist. When the giraffe burned down along with the aviary, its remains were brought to Buckland's table.

There are not so few lovers of exotic free meat in the world. In the USA, in the small town of Marlinton in West Virginia, one of the most unusual culinary festivals of the planet West Virginia Roadkill Cook-Off has been held for many years. At this gastronomic forum, chefs from different states compete to see who will cook the best animal that died on the road.

In 2014, Vice journalist Tom Sherman visited the festival and wrote the most detailed report in its history. Sherman claimed that the variety of dishes in Marlington is not surprising, since along the way he saw deer, raccoon, marmots and possum hit by cars.

At the Virginia Roadkill Cook-Off, participants and guests will be treated to stewed caiman turtles, venison dumplings, baribalah bears in teriyaki sauce and squirrels in gravy. The strict jury is particularly attentive to the quality of the dishes — for stones and asphalt particles in the meat, the participants will be inevitably disqualified.

The rules of the festival strictly prohibit the use of meat of domestic animals and birds — pigs, cows, goats, geese and turkeys - for cooking dishes. The jury members are ready to digest anything if it has a wild animal origin and accidentally died under the wheels of a car or train. In the comic rules of the festival there is a clause that says - "It has been verified that all the judges have tinned stomachs and no vegetarian inclinations." Therefore, all responsibility is removed from cooks.

Many tourists come to the festival both from the USA and from other countries. Almost all of them admit that they went to see the exotic and tickle their nerves, but then they found the dishes from the dead animals very tasty. Some regular guests of the holiday already have their own preferences, for example, they adore rats crushed by cars, fried with onions. If you say that gray rodents are disgusting, they will argue with you until they are hoarse. According to fans of rat meat, it resembles pork, but somewhat salty.

British entomologist Arthur Boyt, who turned 80 not so long ago, just loves badger heads. According to the scientist, you can find five varieties of meat in them, different in taste and texture. In addition, Boyt likes to eat dogs, and he is especially attracted to labrador meat, which reminds him of tender lamb.

The scientist sadly tells that everyone is extremely disapproving of the mention of the culinary virtues of Labrador. At the same time, Boyt emphasizes that he has never killed animals and is more humane in this respect than many of his critics. If the Labrador died under the wheels anyway, then why should such a yummy thing disappear?

Most carrion lovers are united by one thing - unwillingness, one way or another, to harm animals. Arthur Boyt explains his position as follows:

Another dead meat lover, McGowan, remembers growing up near a poultry farm and watching the short life and death of broiler chickens:

He emphasizes that a raccoon dying under the wheels of a car does not experience such torment as animals raised specifically for slaughter. Briton Fergus Drennan, who basically eats only animals and birds that died on the road, calls himself a vegetarian, since, according to him, no animal on this planet died specifically to satisfy his need for meat.

The most radical animal advocates from PETA agree with road carrion eaters. They believe that this is the least evil in relation to nature. Consumers who buy clean meat in plastic packaging from the supermarket are more unpleasant than those who tear raccoons flattened by trucks from the asphalt.

All road carrion eaters recall that they are most often asked if they are afraid of catching some kind of infection. Such a threat actually exists, because no one knows if the animal was healthy before it got under the wheels.

Cases of poisoning and even death, unfortunately, sometimes happen. The most famous is the case that occurred in 2007. Then one of the residents of Arizona, by the way, a biologist by education, found a dead cougar on the side of the road. The man brought her home, butchered and cooked.

Three days later, the gourmet began to overcome a high fever, and a little later a cough with blood began. In the hospital, where the scientist was taken in critical condition, he was diagnosed with pneumonic plague. Unfortunately, on the sixth day after the exotic feast, the man died.

Artist and traveler Alison Spear told reporters about how she once poisoned herself with the meat of a dead penguin found on the coast of Patagonia. At the same time, the woman clarifies that she has been eating carrion for many years, but problems have arisen only once.

Connoisseurs of roadside delicacies are not too picky. Arthur Boyt once admitted that he even cooked half-decomposed raccoons that had been lying in roadside bushes for more than two weeks. Before cooking, a whole layer of maggots had to be removed from the animal carcasses, but this did not affect the entomologist's appetite in any way. Much more of a problem, Boyt and his fellow cooks consider the misunderstanding of households who do not want to see how a disgusting-smelling dead cat or a gopher bloated from the heat is cooked in their kitchen.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that the ability to eat carrion is considered by many to be a gift from God, which is able to save lives in the event of a global cataclysm and avoid cannibalism. Still, eating a half-decomposed cat is not as scary as a neighbor on the playground.